Instruments of the Afterlife

Nomination

Burton Nitta (Michael Burton & Michiko Nitta)

Instruments are created to transform contamination into valuable materials, by employing plants and engineered bacteria. Instead of mining material from geological sources and using fossil fuels that lead to environmental harm, could future generations use the contamination and pollution we leave behind to build their future world? Can they build balanced relationships with the natural world to be a no-waste civilization?

A series of new instruments use synthetic biology, plant science, and nanotechnology. Whilst cleaning the land, they remember the mistakes of the past and create materials to build a post-waste future.

The piece “Instruments of the Afterlife” responds to the scientific research project, Cleaning Land for Wealth (CL4W), funded by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and supported by Creative Outreach Resource Efficiency (CORE) at Loughborough University. The project involves science teams from universities at Birmingham, Cranfield, Edinburgh, Newcastle, and Warwick.

Based in London, Burton Nitta is an interdisciplinary art & design studio founded by Michael Burton (UK) and Michiko Nitta (JP) that collaborates with science and technology to investigate our future world and human evolution. Previous works such as After Agri, Algaculture, The Algae Opera, The Republic of Salivation and The Instruments of the Afterlife are published and exhibited internationally from MoMA, New York, to the V&A Museum, London.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 732019. This publication (communication) reflects the views only of the author, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.